by Ron Elliott
‘What are you doing in here?’
Iris turned to see the young detective who had been conducting the interview with the schoolboy in the school gymnasium. He was in shirt and tie, his arm in a sling.
‘I was looking for Charles Koch,’ said Iris pointing to the Zorro board. She focused on the phone number.
‘Why?’
‘He has some information I want to follow up with him.’
‘In what capacity are you here?’
‘Capacity?’
‘Who are you working for … I’m sorry, Superintendent Richards introduced you as someone with useful questions, but didn’t give a name.’
‘Iris Foster. I’m completing a report on James …’ Iris pointed towards the relevant board. ‘For Doctor Silverberg.’
‘My name is Detective Stuart Pavlovic, Mrs Foster. You most definitely can’t be in here.’ He held his good arm out towards the door.
Iris headed out. ‘What happened to your arm?’
‘A flying brick.’
‘Where is everybody?’
‘A briefing with the Arson Squad downstairs. We’re trying to collate witness statements.’ He went into the incident room where he gathered four or five files. He flicked the doorjamb, shut the door to the room, locking it.
‘The truck,’ said Iris.
Pavlovic regarded her.
Iris said, ‘I don’t understand the logic of the truck.’
Pavlovic still said nothing.
‘Why two different ignition points? The urn and the device on the truck? Why not use the mobile directly, if it was to be used?’
‘I’m not really at liberty to share our work, Mrs Foster. Such permission would have to come from someone in authority. Superintendent Richards or above. Do you have a theory or are you only curious?’
‘It’s relevant to my discussions with James … the suspect.’
He put the manila files on a desk, pulled out a drawer. ‘Do you mind if I record this?’ He pulled a small cassette recorder from the drawer. His unslung arm was sinewy, his shoulders broad. Iris wondered what sport he played.
‘You’ll get my report, Detective, when I deliver it to Doctor Silverberg and he sends it down the line. As you suggest, chain of command.’
‘You’re here. Impressions. Grist for the mill. A thousand thousand details. Police work.’ He was pissed off she’d broken into their case room. He pushed the record button.
Iris leaned towards the recorder. ‘If the offender was going to back the truck up to the doors, once all the students were in, so they couldn’t get out, when the fire took hold …’
‘Who told you this?’
‘I’m surmising from information I’ve gathered.’
‘From the Martian?’
‘No,’ said Iris.
Pavlovic nodded, but didn’t follow up.
Iris went on, ‘Well, James couldn’t have done it, surely. He was nine hundred kilometres away when it would have been time for him to back up the truck.’
‘Unless he lost his courage. Unless he had a nervous breakdown halfway through, ran away.’
‘I see.’
‘You don’t think he did it?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What are you going to say in your report?’
‘I can’t brief you. My report isn’t complete.’
‘We’re spitballing.’
‘Throwing the tea bag at the ceiling to see if it will stick?’
He didn’t smile. He was smart but not a joker.
Iris considered the recorder, which he continued to hold casually in her direction. She said, ‘He has a science background, I think. He’s impulsive. I don’t imagine he’s patient enough for the school. The Martian is empathetic too. He’s a compulsive firelighter who probably shouldn’t be released into the community or put in prison.’
‘Quite a profile.’
‘I could offer more, if I knew more.’ She glanced back at the locked incident room.
‘Not my call, lady.’ It sounded like an insult.
‘Is Charles Koch down at the briefing?’
Pavlovic shook his head, put the recorder back in the drawer, picked up his files.
The fire investigator at the back desk called out, ‘Works out of Southern Metropolitan usually, but he’s not at work. Suspended.’
Before Iris could ask why, Pavlovic interrupted. ‘Could I have your mobile number please? In case I need to follow up on anything?’
Iris fished in her bag, found a card.
The detective held out the files towards the corridor. ‘You can’t be here, Mrs Foster.’
Iris headed out. She heard Pavlovic say, ‘Pugsley, what the fuck you letting people into the incident room for?’
She heard Pugsley say, ‘She works here, doesn’t she?’
Chapter eleven
Iris telephoned Charles Koch.
‘Huh?’ was his inelegant reply. She could hear seagulls.
‘It’s Iris Foster.’
‘Who?’
‘The Fire Lady. I want to ask you about the case. Compare notes. Like you suggested.’
‘Good. Come to my boat. It’s at the back of Tradewinds Marina in the Lochland Cut.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Iris, suddenly wary. ‘How about somewhere … closer to the city?’
They arranged to meet at a pub on the river near the port.
Iris couldn’t see him when she arrived so she ordered food. The crowd was mostly blue-collar, still in fluoro vests, with a scattering of office workers. It was one pm on a Friday. She found a table outside. Occasionally a car or cyclist passed between her and the water. Boats headed upriver with the same frequency. A large concrete traffic bridge spanned above. Trains wiped back and forwards hypnotically on another bridge further downriver. It was summer; the sea breeze wasn’t in yet.
‘Sorry, the traffic was crazy.’
Iris blinked back into the present to see the puffing redness of Chuck Koch.
‘What are you drinking?’
She looked down to see she had eaten most of a mixed seafood plate. Prawn tails lay amidst untouched chips. Her wine glass was empty.
‘A sauvignon blanc, I suspect.’
Koch went away.
Iris took a chip, stirred a glob of mayonnaise. Two more trains crossed in the middle of the distant bridge.
The drinkers at the adjoining table were gone, leaving a packet of cigarettes and green disposable lighter amongst their finished lunch. Iris leaned over and took the lighter, holding it up towards the sun. It was a quarter full. She thumbed the flint and turned the tiny yellow flame, noticed her greasy fingerprints on her empty wine glass.
Koch came back carrying her wine, a glass of scotch and a pint of beer. He was dressed in jeans, boots and a purple-striped shirt, which might be his best. He’d tucked it in to his belt with the big firefighter buckle. The shirt strained over his belly. Tiny beads of sweat collected on his balding head. He ran his hand back over his forehead and down the back of his neck, casually clearing the sweat. ‘So you like Zorro for this?’
‘I’m open to all theories, Mr Koch, if you’re willing to share them.’
‘And you’ll help me with the profile?’
‘Yes.’
‘Call me Chuck. Have you finished with these?’ He pointed to the chips.
‘Yes.’
He pulled the plate over, started on the cold chips.
Iris asked, ‘What do you think his plan was, at the school?’
‘He was waiting for the students to go in, for the main doors to be closed. He was going to back the truck up all the way to the doors so they wouldn’t be able to open them. All the other exits were already chained or glued. They are trapped when the fire starts, panic, screaming in the smoke and growing heat. Possibly he was hoping for a crowd outside including the fire service, gathered close for the coup de grâce, boom.’
‘So what went wrong?’
‘I’m guessing those two kids
who went down under the stage must have upset things. Made the urn spark too soon. Then the kid put out the accelerant trails before they could reach the motherload, whatever that was.’
‘Diethyl ether.’
‘Really? Fuck. No wonder it vaporised everything. Fuck. Excuse my language.’
‘I’ll cope.’
‘It’s kind of weird stuff to pick. Amazing the sparks didn’t set it all off. It must have been sealed pretty good.’
‘You didn’t know about the ether?’
‘The science boys must be keeping it to themselves. How did you know?’
‘Have you been suspended, Chuck?’
He banged the table, not very forcefully. He sipped his scotch, looking at her. ‘Strange earrings.’
‘Antiques. Opal.’ She waited.
‘I punched a bloke.’
‘A fellow worker?’
He constructed a bravado smile. ‘Some of the boys give me shit. Hopalong. Festus or Chester, you know. The deputy or whatever from Gunsmoke with the limp. Missa Dylan, Missa Dylan. So, enough is enough.’
‘Is that the only reason they gave?’
He glared. ‘So I still got to do an interview to get to work with you, huh?’
‘Not at all. Let’s compare notes. I’m not allowed in the room either.’
‘I’ll tell you a story.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t.’
‘You’re a psychiatrist, you love this shit.’
She didn’t bother correcting him. Was he flirting with her? The wine tasted like cold mineral water with barely a hint of grape. It was perfect.
Chuck took a gulp of his beer. He seemed surprised to find a gut, loosened his belt a notch. He glanced up at her, embarrassed. ‘I wasn’t always a fire investigator. I used to be a firey. Part of a platoon. It’s good work with fine men, men you can count on.’
She nodded. She found them fine men and women too.
‘Yeah, you know. The Fire Lady. Well, this day, the one I’m talking about, to explain a few things, this day, it was winter. It hadn’t rained but it was cold. So there were fires. You know, summer is bushfire season, winter is house-fire season. Candles, open fires, heaters next to curtains. Faulty electric blankets. It was a busy day.
‘We got back to the station, already feeling the weight. Eight at night, we haven’t eaten. Steaks were on the barbecue out the back when the call came in. A dosshouse near the harbour. Shit.
‘You got to hate old building fires. You can’t see anything from the outside, can’t attack the fire from out there either. May not even be any rear access. Wooden beams, not steel. Not many windows or ventilation, which, you know, is good or bad depending on where you are, where the fire’s at, which fire genius you’re talking to.
‘Sure enough, we’re fighting to get the pump close. Cars are parked in the street, which isn’t wide. We have an art gallery on one side with the staff running in and out trying to save the artworks. On the other, it’s art supplies, so you don’t want that stuff to go up. There’s a pub across the street with patrons offering drinks, advice, applause. The cops are trying to clear things, including a bunch of deros from the building. Two appliances are already there. A clusterfuck.
‘Jock’s running out two lengths of forty-mil hose. I connect the mate end into the delivery. The pumpy, it was Marco, is finding the hydrant. I can see him and some cops with axes attacking a car parked over the fire-hydrant cover. We’re sent up the stairs to try and suppress the source of the fire from inside. A couple of crews are already in there, primary search and another hose. We don our masks and BA. My peripheral vision is already gone. Jock barks, “Water on. Line one.” Helmet on. Jock has the branch and I back him up on the hose, a metre back, feeling it getting heavier as it fills with water.
‘There’s an old lobby. Water is dripping from the ceiling sprinklers, but they’re not going now, either out of water or busted from their first work-out. Twenty or so fire alarms are squealing and squawking up and down the building. No crackles yet. No smoke, but I see the glow of fire up the stairs, ready to get it on.
‘The lights are out, the electricity isolated by the SO. Getting toasted by live wires lying in all the water is not good. Blue and red flashes come in windows and the doorway from our appliances and the police. Soon someone will set up lights, arc them in through windows, maybe.
‘The second floor is deserted. There’s smoke up near the ceiling but the corridor is pretty clear. We pass the other crew on the third floor, where the fire is. Heavy dark smoke on the ceiling, getting thicker and lower. They are gas-cooling the thermal layer at the ceiling, trying to take the heat down, slow down any flashover. Half the floor at that end is flame.
‘We keep going up. The flames are yellow and new up on the fourth floor down the D-end, powerful and hot. The fire has found or made a hole in the roof, is gorging on air. It’s roaring up here. Windows are exploding. Wood is too. I can hear metal screeching and groaning. It’s a corrugated tin roof I guess. It’s at the point where you no longer care about restricting oxygen to the fire, because you have to ventilate. Clear the smoke, attack the fire directly.
‘I realise the noise is not metal. I hear voices. We hit the doors, one at a time working our way towards the fire. Serious heat. Our tunics are good from two hundred to a thousand degrees, but the masks are fogging. Jock’s hitting it, but our water is vapourising even though he’s got it on full jet. I hit the next door, it pops but I can’t get it open. I can hear coughing. Someone is slumped on the other side of the door. I try to push the door. I reach around and feel a person. They tap my arm. I push the door. I get them out. Jock turns to look. I can see because his helmet torch flares in the smoke. It’s a young chap, dressed in a shirt and collar, coughing. You know there’s a lot of bad shit in the smoke. Not just carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Plastics. Paints. I’m trying to get him up by his arms. The guy’s coughing, calling. I can’t make it out. I get him to the stairs, where smoke is coming up as well as down. There’s a firey there now feeding Jock’s line.
‘“The others,” the young guy bawling in my ear.
‘“What others?”
‘“In the room. The room.”
‘Fuck. I hand him over, run back to Jock.
‘The floor is looking bad. A piece of ceiling halfway down has fallen in a big chunk, now the flames are above and below. Jock pours water at it. “Time to go,” he yells.
‘“There’s more. In the last room we were in.”
‘Silence. We both know. Shit. I’m not even sure where the room is anymore. The neutral plane is almost at floor level – full smoke. We have spot fires breaking out, dancing angels in the smoke. We have floor subsidence under the roof fall.
‘“One look,” I tell him.
‘I feel my way up along the left wall, patting each closed door until I reach an opening. Jock is at my shoulder. I’m in. I feel bodies, legs in the middle of the floor. Another person under the window. Flames are starting to lick in through the open doorway. They’ve opened the window to breathe and now the fire wants some too. Jock’s painting the door jamb, beating the fire back. I stand, knowing my back is to the door. I grab the bloke’s ankles, drag him backwards and out. I can’t really see Jock, only the flash of his luminescent stripes. I can’t see his hose line. I get this bloke up on my shoulders. My knees are strong. I’m a bull. I keep the wall to my right shoulder.
‘I hand this one over to a crew at the stairs. They’re screaming, “Pull back. Retreat. Pull back.” My radio hasn’t been working all job. I call, “Roger.” I’m getting short of breath.
‘An alarm is still going. How? It’s me. It’s my air. I’m down to sixty bar. I can’t believe it. The cylinder can’t have been full. Then I remember my consumption is bound to be way up. I’m running. I’m hauling bodies. Which is when I should have pulled the pin. That was the time. Abandon ship. No air. You can’t save everyone, right?’
Iris nodded. It is true. Is this the point of Chuck�
�s story? The reason he’s telling her? What is his burden? What does he need her to know?
‘I didn’t do the smart thing. I wasn’t finished. I bumped my way back along the wall again. I passed Jock, who was pulling out. He couldn’t get enough water in. Deep in a fire, it’s like being under water. The eddies of smoke, drifting yellow flame, licking orange. It’s all in slow motion. The noises are distant too. Like all you can hear is your breathing and your boots on the floor, everything is slow and floating.
‘A chunk of the floor is completely gone. I have to skirt a big hole. I hit the open door, fall into the room as bricks and metal crash down in the corridor. It’s a lot of weight. Something has given up the ghost.
‘I close the door. Hope the fire goes somewhere else first. It likes the least resistance. It goes where it’s easiest. I find the man near the window, fuck me, there’s another one under him. I know I am sucking last breaths from my oxygen cylinder. This is when I find I’ve lost my hooligan – my prying, levering tool. So, I’m patting myself down, seeing what tools I might have on me because I know there’s steel mesh on all the windows. The front corner of the ceiling starts to glow pink.
‘I’ve still got the hook knife. I don’t know how it stayed tied on or how I didn’t trip over it. I can make out the lock with my helmet torch. I get the hook knife, dig it under the window, bend. I dig it into the mesh, twist, keep hacking and twisting at it until the whole thing comes away. The window is also locked halfway down. It’s a sash. So I get my hook knife and try to smash the wood. It won’t break. I hate wood.
‘There’s a wooden cabinet, like a bedside table under the sill. I throw it at the window. Right through, like Hercules. I lean my head out. I rip my mask off, get a mouthful of air, but smoke cuts into the back of my throat like steel wool, my eyes water.